New to me this election cycle is vote pairing, or vote swapping. I read about it in the Salt Lake City Tribune today. In effect, it allows Democratic and/or third-party voters to swap their votes with voters in pivotal swing states (a.k.a. Ohio, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico) in order for your vote to really matter. Object: Bypass silly Electoral College. Hand Kerry key wins. Send Bush back to Crawford.
Written by Nicole Warburton, she gives some key points about the practice of swapping at the bottom of her article (which, by the way, has a hint of "look what the Democrats are doing now" attitude to it):
What is vote swapping?
An effort to elect Sen. John Kerry to the White House, while encouraging support of third-party candidates like Ralph Nader.
How does it work?
For a Democrat in Utah, vote swapping means trading a vote for Kerry with a third-party supporter in a "swing" state. For instance, the Utah Democrat would vote for Nader, while her swing-state partner would vote for Kerry.
Why does it work?
This philosophy is based on the "winner-take-all" rule of the Electoral College. The president is elected after winning a majority of electoral votes, not the popular vote. In swing states like Florida or Ohio, electoral votes can be decided by a few hundred voters.
Is this legal?
Legality is still in question, but vote swapping may not be against the law because votes are "paired," not sold.
If you are interested, you can locate a willing voter to swap votes with by visiting www.votepair.org. (This is the crux of the debate for me--do you trust the person in the other state to vote for Kerry?)
In regards to legality: After the voter registration fraud being reported in Nevada and Oregon, in which employees of Sproul and Associates were seen tearing up voter registrations for Democrats, Republicans have no room to call vote swapping unfair or illigel. Update: DailyKos today posted the link to the LA Times article stating that Oregon is opening a criminal probe regarding this.
Nevertheless, I will keep my vote for Kerry here in Utah so when the tallies are displayed at the end of the day, the Republicans can see that they are not the only political inhabitants in this pretty great state.
On the other hand, the rebel yell in me says: "Hey Electoral College! Neener, neener, neener!"
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